everlasting war
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: The war goes forever on, and they aim for the holy grail which holds inside of it the strongest despair.
1. 1

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, e2 - poetry novel.

* * *

 **everlasting war  
** 1.

The war goes on.

She watches from her window as the soldiers come and go, as the children grow weapons before they grow beards and how the sheen of their sweat is coloured

With blood, bright red blood, that colours the flag of war as well

And that stone, the heart that beats  
in the centre of this war.

That stone is the holy grail they chase and they don't even know, don't realise it's the holy grail of the war they seek and it's no holy grail at all. They seek it because it's a holy grail to them – their beacon of hope – but they're children still even if they are children who wield real adult swords and they don't realise that hope is, in its pits, a deep despair

And the stone shines red on its surface;  
red like the sun, red like war,  
and red like blood that fuels said war

And the war goes on.


	2. 2

**everlasting war  
** _2._

Once upon a time, another woman watched from her windowsill as well.

Another woman stood  
with the sun burning  
through opaque glass, and giving  
a bright and clear look at those dulled-out  
eyes of the soldiers who marched  
back home.

And the ones she waited for never did  
come home. She heard the tears, days later,  
instead. The wailing girl that ran past  
her window as she stairs, wailed for parents  
who should have been in the crowd  
they'd looked after, they'd searched

But instead they were blue, only blue:  
the military who'd cast off their cloaks and coats  
and wore only their uniform now: uniform blues…

Why did they choose to walk back from the war in blue?  
Was it so the red that painted their skin can't be seen?  
Is it because the grey slates of their weary souls  
they tuck away, so they can march on.

She watched them march on.

She looked behind them and there's nothing there,  
only their shadows, and the sun on their backs,  
and the tailwind of blue coat shadows.

Once upon a time, she watched from her windowsill  
and there was nothing there.


	3. 3

**everlasting war**  
3.

Two boys come home from war but they're not home not really their minds are elsewhere

Still on the battlefield.

One dresses in red.  
Red coat.  
Red blood on hands  
and a silver chain on his belt  
that's slowly sprouting rust.

The only thing that's missing is those eyes.  
They're still gold. Still glittering.

And the sun is hot in Resembool with or without those boys but they come anyway, come and stay at their neighbour's place and scream to the world how their house is a pile of ash now so they've come home and yet they're not really home and they'll never really be home

So they can go back to the battlefield whenever they choose.  
So they can stay on the battlefield until the fight's through.

Two boys come home from war but they're not home at all they don't have a home and they're elsewhere in mind and spirit and they can only sit so long

But as much as they try, they can't build their home in that war and so they keep coming back.


	4. 4

**everlasting war  
** 4.

Those two boys didn't always live  
in a war.

There was a pretty little house on the hill  
the sort out of a fairytale and there'd be a woman with brown hair humming away as she hung out the washing  
and two sun-haired little boys running around and causing more trouble than they mean  
and sometimes with an equally sun-haired girl from the house just down a ways  
and that'd be their life: their quiet little village life, their quiet little family

But both their families had bits missing.  
The sun-haired girl had no parents. The old war had snatched them away and the blood-smattered and sand-soaked soldiers had passed through their town and told them and offered their condolences  
and then trod off again in their blue uniforms like the sky and her eyes and the eyes of her parents  
and they'd gone to a war in which the enemy hated those coloured eyes

But they were doctors and doctors treated everyone: child or woman or man or friend or enemy or stranger or not even human at all

But they didn't come back from the war.

And for the boys, their jagged family picture had nothing to do with the war  
or as far as they knew, anyhow; the soldiers had no tidings for them, just weary (or sometimes leery)  
eyes towards the pair of small but sturdy boys and their chestnut mother…  
No tidings to the father that had walked off for parts unknown

Though at least the soldiers walked with purpose, and walked with destination.

The day those boys burned down their home,  
they walked with purpose and destination too.


	5. 5

**everlasting war  
** 5.

Their town was a quiet one, until the soldiers walked through.  
There was a single mother up the hill and everybody knew  
but no-one cared… It wasn't that sort of small and quiet town  
where everyone was stuck in a cube except those who fell down

But when the soldiers walked through, they brought with them  
the loud clangs of swords and loud clicks of guns even when they weren't in use  
and they left a little wailing girl behind where the war shouldn't have touched,  
that war that seemed so far away and yet had cut them deep  
and splattered the blood.

And their town found their quiet after that…except for the house on the hill  
they pitied, because that poor young woman was stuck with two healthy boys  
all alone, but their town was the sort where they loved each other, where they helped,  
where they were one big family… And yet family was still family  
and the war had still struck.

And after the war came the sickness they fought, and they defeated  
but this war too took a casualty that was, for that family on the hill, too steep  
to pay: the kids were alone now, and alone they cried, and they pleaded,  
and they went off for parts unknown and the townsfolk could only cry as well  
and wish them good luck

And then a year later the house on the hill lights up like a storm  
and they wonder if it is the storm because thunder and lightning and rain  
come down as well, except it's not the storm.

And they only know the boys are back some days afterwards, when they  
visit their neighbour's house and see the pale and bandaged little boy on the sheets  
like a broken doll who's missing some of his parts

And they can only offer their condolences once more, because their town  
is too small to deal with the aftershocks of the world's and person's war.


	6. 6

**everlasting war  
** 6.

Two more soldiers come, but these soldiers are quiet and searching  
and they think little of it, aside from their glares  
because soldiers always mean bad tidings, and a war somewhere  
and they're far too small a town for such wars…

But they leave a spark behind nonetheless  
and this spark is a little welcome one as well, because it's the sort of spark  
that pulls one of their very own out of the deep well he'd fallen in  
but it also snatched him away, away from their town  
once more…

Maybe they were also the ones who caused that house on top of the hill  
to burn  
(or maybe it had nothing at all to do with them)

And they floated in and out: those two boys who chased their fortune  
on a leash that was stained with blood, and the two who'd offered them  
that leash… And one of them wore gloves of fire that created real  
flesh sparks, and none them them realised or knew  
just what those sparks had done.

It was a deeper tale than most of them knew, even in such a small town where they all knew  
all there was to know, or so they'd thought.  
But the world was a much larger place, and many things had wound up slipping through the cracks

And they were eventually hailed as heroes, eventually welcomed  
into their little town, armed with that knowledge, but they didn't know  
they'd let the murderer of two of their own into the midst

And yet did it even matter? They had all sinned: the victims as well.  
Those brothers and the lonely mechanic girl that were their own  
and that man as well. They were all innocent in this war  
and all sinners as well, but they all knew each other's sins

And the townsfolk only knew the surface of the war.


	7. 7

**everlasting war  
** 7.

They aim for a goal that they now know is impossible to reach  
but they walk that path anyway. They must

Because that is a human's way, to walk forward even when the road ends and that is their way as well, because they've got no-where to stop, no soil that will take their roots and allow them to settle down…

But that's fine because if they stop, the failures will weigh too heavily on them and they'd rust all too quickly in the ensuring rain

And even if the holy grail they seek is disguised as poison instead when they finally stumble into its half-filled chalice  
they'll drink it till they're full and then die with smiles on their faces

(except it's not that sort of poison, but blood, fresh blood  
and they're not cannibals or vampires to be able to palate it)

But still, they'll search, for a holy grail they can bring to their lips and drink their fill  
or they'll stumble into a hole too many along the way.


End file.
